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U.S. going to Rio for 2007 Pan Am Games
By Bob Condron // USOC Media Services // January 24, 2007
The XV Pan American Games will take place July 13-29 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and will feature 5,500 athletes from 42 countries competing in 28 different sports.
For the first time ever, the Parapan American Games (featuring Paralympic athletes) will take place immediately after and in the same city as the Pan American Games. The Parapan American Games will be contested August 12-19 and will include more than 1,300 athletes competing from 26 countries.
The Pan American Games are a continental version of the Olympic Games that includes the Olympic Program sports and other events such as bowling, squash, roller sports and water skiing that are not part of the Olympic Games.
The U.S. delegation will include 650 athletes and will likely include strong national teams and Olympic-caliber athletes competing with the prospects of Beijing and the 2008 Olympic Games just around the corner.
Located on the Brazilian southeast coast, Rio de Janeiro is famous for its unique natural setting, the Carnival of Rio, samba music, its pavements decorated with black and cream swirl pattern mosaics, and last but not least, the superb beaches known all over the world, primarily Copacabana and Ipanema. Other interesting attractions in Rio are the statue of Christ the Redeemer (98.5 ft tall) on Corcovado Mountain, Marcanã Stadium (one of the largest in the world) and Sugar Loaf Mountain and its cable car.
Conducted every four years, always one year before the Olympic Games, the first Pan American Games were held in 1951, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. However, its origin dates back to 1932, in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Inspired by the holding of the first Central American Games six years earlier, the Latin American representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proposed the creation of a competition that would include all the countries in the Americas, for the purpose of strengthening sport activities in the region.
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